As WiFi networks become increasingly ubiquitous, new applications for WiFi are continually being developed. For example, the original IEEE 802.11 standards did not include any support for multicast or groupcast transmissions in the wireless network (i.e. a basic service set, or BSS), which would be useful for applications such as audio and video distribution. Recently, however, the IEEE 802.11aa standard included definitions for multicast/groupcast transmissions, including a mechanism where a WiFi access point (AP) can provide reliability by allowing for retransmissions of multicast/groupcast (MG) data. The retransmissions can be in response to acknowledgements (i.e. BlockAck) or lack thereof from receiving devices. However, there is currently no mechanism for applications to support transfer of data with varying delay, throughput and latency requirements depending on user experience.
Moreover, the sink devices that are receiving the multicast content can be positioned at different locations and experience different link conditions. However, there is currently no mechanism to change the frequency at which acknowledgements for each of the sink devices is requested. Similarly, with changes in application packet size there is a variation in the performance in the packet transfer delay and also the medium efficiency. While a higher packet size improves the medium efficiency it also increases the transfer delay of the application content. However, there is currently no mechanism to change packet application size based on link conditions.
Accordingly a need remains for a solution to these and other problems.